Well for me, couponing started when our finances fell apart when my husband’s cancer bills started rolling in. I felt groceries was the only area that I REALLY could save some money on. We were living paycheck to paycheck and praying my husbands business would cover the cost of everything my paycheck couldn’t afford.

Over the last year, my husbands business stayed very busy. Why then were we still not feeling like we are making headway on bills? It was because we never put our mind to it.

We were asked to teach a “Freed Up” financial class put out by Willow Creek Church. We normally do our lifegroup and have friends who are like family over for big dinners and talk about our Christian walks. Well, our group was HUGE last session and we birthed 2 new groups so we felt like maybe it was time to do something different.

Though the class style wasn’t my favorite, the information was God sent. We had attended a Financial Peace University class about 7 years ago so we had done all this stuff once before. When I started doing all the work, I thought we were going to be right back to where we were 7 years ago. But we are in a MUCH better spot than that so things were not as bad as we had feared. I looked at money coming, money going out and what we want to save for. I was scared because we have planned a trip to Disney, my husband has committed to doing the 2013 Ironman, my daughter is going to Europe for 10 days next summer… etc., etc. So I was scared to even start this. I was thinking we’d have to give-up something. But when you ask yourself… What would you give up to be debt free… There isn’t much. We even discussed things with our kids and they are totally on board.

I’m praying we can stick this out because we’ll be free of credit card debt in 2 years and 100% debt free in 7 years. Praise God! I think we plan on teaching this course through-out the year to ensure we are staying on course. God has plans for me and my family and if we owe 1000’s and 1000’s of dollars, we won’t be able to execute that plan. I’m so excited to see what is going to come next!

If you are in a spot where you need to control your finances, look at the free resources at www.willowcreek.com/freedup. And always, let me know if you have any questions!

It depends. I like both for different reasons. Dave is so charasmatic and enjoyable to watch where the Willow Creek videos are a little hokey. BUT Dave is 13 weeks and costs $80+ and WC is only 6 weeks and cost $14 so… I think it depends on your level of commitment. With 2 very active kids, I’d opt for the $14, 6 weeker.